After facing a flurry of cattiness when she appeared a little bedraggled, with heavily smudged black make-up, at the GQ awards in September, the TV star breezily tweeted: “Oh my. They’re not wrong. Eyeliner going in the bin.”

Despite loving what she does, she admits her ideal scenario would be no work at all – and that she’s “livid” when she has to get out of bed.

Swe what: Claudia on The Great British Sewing Bee with May Martin and Patrick Grant (Image: BBC)

In fact, she’s purposefully cut down on work for her family’s sake.

As we chat at The Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace in South West London, she’s frantically looking for some wood to touch as she talks about keeping her three children – Jake, 10, seven-year-old Matilda and Arthur, two – “safe, well-read and hopefully happy”.

Refreshingly open, the presenter – the daughter of former newspaper editor Eve Pollard and publisher Barry Winkleman – modestly describes her job as “reading out loud”.

Claudia has a master’s degree from Cambridge University but she has labelled herself as “not the cleverest”.

The BBC star, who admits that she did not have a proper boyfriend until she was 21, worked in a gallery and as a magazine fashion assistant before switching to the crazy world of TV.

She seems content now but a while back she re-addressed her life when the amount of work she was doing left her “miserable”.

But she does not reveal whether that coincided with a particularly skinny spell in 2009, and rumours her marriage to film producer Kris Thykier was in trouble.

That's better: Claudia looking amazing (Image: Camera Press)

Claudia says she’s still careful with her time, adding she tries to work when the children are asleep or with hubby Kris.

The Great British Sewing Bee, which pits 10 amateur stitchers against each other in challenges judged by Savile Row tailor Patrick Grant and sewing teacher May Martin, returns tonight to BBC2 at 8pm.

Claudia says the show is great fun to make, adding: “The camaraderie on any film crew is key. I shouldn’t say this but it doesn’t really matter what goes out. I hope it’s fine and I hope I can continue to have a job but if I don’t, I don’t.

“I’ll bake. I’ll open a bakery, no one will come. But the key with all these things is that the crew, the hair and make-up, and the sewers all cry with laughter all day.”

While her feet are firmly on the ground, the celebs she interviews often aren’t.

“You have high expectations, and then you meet them and they’re a bit weird,” she says.

“I don’t want to meet famous people, I don’t believe in them. I think they might secretly all be awful.”

And despite her penchant for lazing in bed, she relishes her work.

Happy family: Claudia and husband Kris (Image: Getty)

“When I leave something, it’s gone, finished. When I’m doing Strictly, there’s nothing else. I’m the colour of George Hamilton and I’m obsessed by fleckerls, the signature move in the Viennese waltz, but then a week after Strictly’s done, I can’t tell you who’s won.”

Then we’re quickly back to her kids. Claudia recalls that despite her parents divorcing when she was three, and her mum going on to edit the Sunday Mirror and Sunday Express, she was always made to feel like she was the number one priority.

And she wants her kids to feel the same.

She is still close to her mum. Claudia says: “The children call her Grandma Bonkers. She arrives in a flurry of stickers, singing and having fun.”

She adds: “The kids are my main job. I love them. I want to be with them because they’re going to be bored of me in a minute.”

Claudia then says with a giggle: “After that, it’s back to dyeing my skin and reading out loud.”